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I don't know which form it is grammatically, but this expression generally means 'to pretend to be doing something'. However, in combination with a verb that describes sensing (e.g. kuulla, tuntea) it means 'to think or believe to have sensed something', i.e. the person speaking is not sure whether the sensation is real. Hekaheka

I see that you are pretty advanced in your Finnish studies as you ask this type of question. In this context "U" simply means that it can be replaced with "u" or "y", which I guess you already figured out. What it means, is a bit complicated to explain, but I'll try. Some inflected forms of infinitives and participles have, in addition to what can be infered directly from the inflection, a specific meaning. If they have it, such form is called nippuinfinitiivi ("bundled infinitive"(?)) by Kotus, and §123 of Kotus grammar discusses them. One example is -vinaan, which has been discussed a few lines up, and this is another. Above an anonymous contributor used term kvasirakenne ("quasistructure"), which I'd guess (I'm engineer, not linguist) is a more general term which covers also other than infinitive/participle-based structures.

Let's take luetun as an example. Normally passive past participle behaves like adjective:

But, with some verbs, such as näyttää (“to seem”), tuntua (“to feel”), vaikuttaa (“to appear”), sanoa (“to say”) it gets a slightly different meaning, which may be less clear in English translation than in the original:

Artikkelia sanotaan luetun paljon Suomen kouluissa.

It is said that this article has been read a lot in Finnish schools.

I hope you are not more puzzled than before asking your question! --Hekaheka (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, at least I think that this use of -tUn is not so unfamiliar to me as I thought. The nippuinfinitiivi -vinaan was never discussed in the Essential Finnish Grammar that I had used (Fred Karlsson), but the construction that you gave as an example for "luetun" is discussed there under the title "The participial construction". Basically, it says that you can put any participle (except the agent and the negative) in the genitive to substitute an että-clause. The subject of the että-clause then appears in the genitive (maybe appended as a possessive suffix to the verb). Wisapi (talk) 08:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Never heard, but I think this is onomatopoetic. I would assume that the water was cold and the coldness made them speak in a funny way, gasping and speaking simultaneously. Kesäihminen = kesä (“summer”) + ihminen (“human”). This is not a commonly used expression, but I understand it as "people spending their summer vacation". --Hekaheka 15:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

kaappi (“closet, cupboard”) + tapainen (“resembling, -like”). Postman (postinkantaja) is a person who delivers the post, whereas postinhoitaja (“post officer”) is one who takes care of the post office. I believe that postinhoitaja is one who is responsible for a small post office, possibly so small that he is working alone. If there were many people serving the public they would more likely be called postivirkailija whereas their boss would be postimestari or postipäällikkö. --Hekaheka 21:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a misspelled frequentative form of kurkottaa. The correct spelling would be kurkotella. With mykevä I believe you mean jykevä (“heavy, sturdy, massive”). --Hekaheka 17:10, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the book it is indeed written mykevään. Wisapi 12:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite understand. Did he eat the eyes, or is this imitating the sound caused by squeezing somebody's eyes out of the head? The verb, anyway, is kurlaista --Hekaheka 07:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the first "poem" of the second section "pahasta miehestä, artosta, omarista, puittenkuhisemisesta". The entire poem reads thus:

1

Nyt kerron teille pahasta miehestä.

Jo viisivuotiaana hän työnsi haarukan äitinsä kohtuun.

Veljiltään hän näykkäsi silmät, kurlaisi kevyesti.

Sisariltaan hän viilsi rinnat ja pani patjantäytteeksi.

Tässä näette hänet lehtikuvassa: naama tänne päin,

juo verta suuresta posliinituopista, värikuva.

(So I guess the most macabre will do!) Wisapi 12:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Atta brother! I would say he ate the eyes and gurgled slightly when they slid down. --Hekaheka 19:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Does jälki also mean 'result', 'effect', rendering the translation of this sentence: "The previous night Elvi ironed and got angry »with these contraptions results never come»"? Or did the author really mean the traces an iron leaves behind? Wisapi 18:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Because the person spoken to is going just out, not necessarily to butcher's. He is told to go to the butcher's shop "in the same time" or "on the same go" as he is going out anyway. --Hekaheka 13:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and how does the second sentence translate. I'm a bit confused, because there seems to be two idications of place. "She was there, where from the front (?) it is possible to see the back, and the train went from in between straight away, but then showed up again." ? Wisapi 19:07, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

lamaannuttaa I found in another dictionary that this verb mean "cripple", "paralyze", "lame", "numb", "devitalize", "discourage" and "incapacitate"; but can it be a kind of auxiliary verb with the latter meanings? "Laimistunut ilme sisaren kasvoilla lamaannutti halun jatkaa." = "The diluted expression on the sister's face discouraged the continuation of the desire"? Wisapi 21:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Almost so: "The diluted (an English writer would probably choose another word, maybe "unenthusiastic" or "disillusioned") expression on sister's face crippled his desire to continue." --Hekaheka 02:49, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is lemmikki + -ni. I don't think anyone makes regularly this type of entries and I'm not sure if anyone should. The problem here is the multiplication effect. Counting singular and plural, every Finnish noun has 26 case forms. There are six possessive suffixes. Only these two aspects would produce 182 entries for each noun. Adding the clitics, we would easily get 1000 forms for each noun. If we assume that there are roughly 100,000 nouns in Finnish, we would need about 100 million entries to cover every noun form. I have added suffixed forms only if there's a possibility of confusion, like in tiesi, varaani, kaljaasi, juopa, suopa, kuusi (all of these are not finished, they just occurred quickly in my mind). --Hekaheka 21:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Either it's large-scale bot work or (ideally) something that could be parsed at lookup time: "oh, this is Finnish and it's lemmikki + -ni". Nothing Wiktionary can support right now. Maybe for the future. I just thought this one word was cute :) Equinox◑ 21:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

lytty We have the plural of this world (lytyt) but not the singular. I guess it has something to do with rutataWisapi 22:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I think lytyt should be deleted, as nobody would ever actually use it. Also lytty is not existing in its base form. If it did, it would mean something like "state of being flattened". Only the inessive and elative cases are used as adverbs in expressions like ollalytyssä (to be flattened) or lyödälyttyyn (to flatten). Your impression of the word having something to do with rutata was thus quite right. --Hekaheka 23:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you think a page should be created for lytty its inexistance notwithstanding just to have a reference point for users who try to search the word by its root? Wisapi 01:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

lähelle I read in a grammar that lähelle is a postposition taking the genitive case; however, in following sentence, it comes after a noun in the allative "Uljas täytti muovisangon vedellä ja kapusi Jannen jäljessä lauteille lähelle tummuneen katon rajaa." Wisapi 13:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

That's another funny feature of our language. Some postpositions may be alternatively used as prepositions, and in those occasions the case of the main term may change. Here lähelle defines the border of the blackened roof, and the main term is actually in partitive. Thus:

I'm not sure what you're asking. Literally the sentences mean: "finally he/she found work for his/her fingers in twiddling the button" and "people would start saying hello to them, they would say hello back and they would find friends for themselves". --Epiq 23:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. I was totally wrong. I thought that those phrases would translate to "finally she found work in her fingers" and "they would find friends in themselves" as if the choice of using the allative case instead of the ablative for "sormensa" and "itsensä" were just to convey a nuance in the meaning of where it was found, and not to mark the purpose of what was found. The confusing words I used before was an attempt at following the terminology explained in the usage notes on löytää. Wisapi 01:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

umpio means a space or container that has been hermetically sealed from its environment, like a tightly closed bottle or a lightbulb. It's not the same as tyhjiö (“vacuum”), because the latter contains no matter. I have been looking for an English translation but have not found any. --Hekaheka 20:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This is writer's own word (at least I have not seen it), but it seems to mean möyhentää (“to make a material softer by working it with something, e.g. hands”). Note the difference from myöhentää (“to postpone”).

Don't get it. The full sentence? --Hekaheka 20:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I got that (and tried to write down to the best of my abilities) from a little song with no accompaniment I heard in YLE-Puhe. Now, I think it might have been "niin kuin". Wisapi 13:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You might have heard "niinkuinennen", which is a common expression, "like before", "like it used to be". --Epiq 23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

From näppi (“fingertip, finger”), to snap one's fingers or to move something by a snap of fingers; to flip, to flick. --Hekaheka 20:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

napata jonkun nenän edestä The meanings I could make from these sentences ("grab one's nose from one's face") don't seem to make sense in this passage, where the couple Sakari and Hertta receive a visit from Linnea and Aimo:

This is an idiom, literally "to grasp something that's right in front of the nose of another person" meaning that somebody gets hold of something that another person also wanted. --Hekaheka 18:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Partitive plural of nutipäinen, which actually is an adjective to describe a hornless cow. I believe that here it means that the bottles did not have a cap; used to contrast them with the other bottles which had a lon stick or rod inside them, resembling a horn. --Hekaheka 14:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"He pressed lightly his blouse at front, and as he breathed, with eyes helplessly large and old, he seemed to be on his guard against the pain he was expecting." --Hekaheka 12:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

But why is edestä following a noun in the partitive instead of genitive? And why is the preposition in the elative case instead of inessive (edessä) if a more precise description of the spot [was is near the sternum?] where she pressed is introduced by missä and not mistä? Besides, why does avuttomasti refer to the character herself instead of her eyes, as it is between "silmät" and "isoina ja vanhoina"? Wisapi 12:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Racistic against whom? I think I got this sentence from a woman commenting on a group of guys who were watching her in the street, but I'll have to check for more clues later because I've already returned this book.

Against the person that allegedly has the mutasilmä, I would suppose. I may be wrong, of course, if the woman meant that she liked the dark eyes of the guys. What made me think it's a rasistic comment is that mutakuono = muta (“mud”) + kuono (“snout”) is definitely a rasistic term used of people with dark skin. --Hekaheka 17:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

olla Sometimes this verb comes along with the infinitive of another verb, like in "Töyhtötukka [that's how the narrator calls a bully] oli törmätä häneen". How does this structure translate? Wisapi 19:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The structure refers to an almost completed activity: the bully almost bumped against the other guy. Töyhtötukka, btw, is a "crest-hair" --Hekaheka 10:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

So this structure is interchangable with the fifth infinitive's, but the latter, I guess, is posher? Wisapi 23:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

[Hm, so I guess that in linguistical terms the difference is that using the first infinitive implies a telic (or perfective?) meaning while using the fifth is atelic (or imperfective?)] Wisapi 00:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Idiomatic ottaa + voimille = to be a strain, to burden; literally "to get on one's strength" --Hekaheka 06:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

ottaa + infinitive What does this verb mean when followed by an infinitive? "Putkautuessaan autosta hän katsoi suoraan alas tiehen ja antamatta Kaukon auttaa itseään otti tukea kyynärpäällään ovesta." Apropos, is tukea also one of those verbs which are followed by a lative case location (like etsiä)? Wisapi 15:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

polvi (“knee”) + pussi (“bag”) + -nen > having its knees bagging. Kalsarit is colloquial of alushousut and they can refer to underwear of both sexes, whereas nimettömät are women's panties. Nahkaliivi is a leather vest, but rintaliivi is a bra - big difference. Liivi may refer to either of them. --Hekaheka 20:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

puhuttavansa As in "Ne olivat jo puhuneen puhuttavansa." Does the present passive participle also have the meaning of "to have to do" even when used outside the structure "jonkun on 'present passive participle' ", rendering the meaning of this sentence something like "They had already said what they had to say"? Wisapi 04:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

päistään Why is pää in the elative plural in the following sentence: "Punertavan tukkansa hän oli kammannut nutturalle ja omien kulmiensa yläpuolelle maalannut tänään toiset, kapeanterävät päistään kohoavat viirut." Should that mean that she painted today the second(?) narrow-sharp(?) rising streaks on her heads(?) above her eyebrows, the use of the elative together with maalata in the same way it accompanies löytää? Wisapi 20:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the streaks rose at their ends. --Hekaheka 04:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

pöpperehtiä This is again writer's own terminology, probably derived from pöpperöinen (“dizzy”) and possibly meaning something like "going zig-zag with difficulty". --Hekaheka 02:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, how does the boldfaced phrase parse? Wisapi 16:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

(genitive +) pituinen is an adjective, meaning "being of the length of": metrin pituinen = "one meter long". Sen pituinen se is a set phrase which is often used to end a fairytale, meaning "that's the length of it" or "that's all there was. This sentence might translate as: "That's it, he said, meaning that he had struggled in vain."

puhtaaksi(-)kirjoitustyötään (again I don't know whether the hyphen belongs to the word because it happened to be at the end of the line) "Ja myöhään iltaan saakka Hertta naputti koneella puhtaaksi(-)kirjoitustyötään." Wisapi 14:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the English translation, but the source term is kirjoittaa puhtaaksi, which literally translates to "write clean" or perhaps "clean-write". The writer of the story has chosen another verb (naputtaa (“to type”)), but the idea is still the same. The sentence means that Hertta is retyping her work late in the night, correcting the errors she has found and putting the style right. --Hekaheka 18:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not notice the hyphen. It changes the meaning, as it makes puhtaaksikirjoitustyötään a compound term, meaning "her clean-writing job". The difference is that Hertta was not necessarily the author (she might, though) of the work which she was typing. --Hekaheka 09:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

To be transitive or intransitive, that's the question! I think many transitive verbs can be used intransitively by simply omitting the object if it is obvious. Example: "I'm driving a car" vs. "I'm driving". In the latter sentence, is "to drive" transitive or intransitive? It is obvious that the speaker is driving something, he/she just does not mention what. --Hekaheka 22:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

päättää also has the sense "to finish". --Hekaheka 22:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm.. But why is there a -nsa suffix on koulu, if the message should be addresing the reader (vs. -si)? By the way, do all kids in Finland start having vacations about this time of the year or just the seniors? Wisapi 19:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the vacations in peruskoulu (“comprehensive school”) and lukio (“high school”) all start about in the end of May. -nsa indicates 3rd person plural. This is a confusing sentence, because it first addresses a crowd and then reminds everyone individually:

We wish to congratulate those (who are) finishing their school and remind that you can apply to many schools still in the summer.

It is panna (“to put”) + alle (“below”), meaning here to "write under (the epitaph)". Omaiset refers to the nearest family, usually including at least one's parents, siblings, spouse and children, but often also grandparents and grandchildren. The last sentence cites a typical epitaph. Poistua luotamme is a euphemism meaning "to die", thus poistui luotamme kodissaan means "died in his home". --Hekaheka 21:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

These are all related words from the Kilpalaulanta. What is the root word and what does it mean?

As far as I know rahje is a part of work horse's harness. Listed words are forms of that word. In modern Finnish the plural of the word (rahkeet) is used figuratively to refer to financial, intellectual etc. ability as a property of an individual or organization. Hekaheka 09:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

rekottaa describes the kind of laughing, I would think Lipe's laughing resembles the croak of a crow. I don't understand the second sentence out of context, but panen has no objective, which makes me think it means to fuck, but does that make any sense? --Hekaheka 21:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

revittyä "Yhdessä he saivat revittyä Ismon mukaansa." Is this also a verb or only the partitive passive past of repiä? Wouldn't there be missing a complement to saada in the latter case? Wisapi 19:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

saada (“to get”) + passive past participle in partitive of another verb = to get done, to manage to do. Actually, the participle should be in translative (saada tehdyksi), but I'm afraid partitive is more commonly used. --Hekaheka 07:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps another is structure similar to that is this one which I just found: "tulla + active past participle translative". "Kaiken iltaa hän oli hyvillään siitä että oli tullut soittaneeksi ja hän ajatteli että siinä on tosiaan hieno ihminen." Does that work always? By the way, if one would like to avoid using siinä here because it should actually replace only objects and not people, would it be correct to say "että tässä on tosiaan hieno ihminen"? Wisapi 00:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Same as istua (“to sit”), but in a way which the observer finds somehow provocative, even threatening. Anita slipped from his hands, and run to turn the radio on. --Hekaheka 20:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, räpsyä and räpsähdellä are the same thing, and they have two translations to English: "to flash" (like light going on and off) or to wink (like eye). Rapina is a sound. --Hekaheka 23:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Not heard before. According to Nykysuomen sanakirjarääppä is synonymous to rähmä, which means "the substance found in the corner of the eyes after waking". Possibly the writer wants to say that the beach in question is not the most beautiful one in the world. --Hekaheka 19:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

rinnatusten This word should mean breast against breast, but that doesn't make sense in the following phrase: "Lintuja oli kaksi, ne uivat rinnatusten, samaan suuntaan, poikkesivat suunnasta, tekivät mutkia, pulhtivat veden alle, [...]" Howcome can two ducks swim in the same direction looking into the faces of one another? Unless one swam backwards, they'd have to swim side by side ('vieretysten') to head to the same direction. Wisapi 20:17, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

And what does it mean? The entry is empty. Wisapi 01:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the exact translation, but this is an onomatopoetic verb describing a sound that is like little explosions occurring frequently. I think crackle or crack come quite close. For example, when one burns dry twigs, they give a sound which could be described with "rätistä". You might also describe the sound made by firecrackers with this verb.--Hekaheka 20:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

räiskähdellä is the combined momentaneous and frequentative aspect of räiskyä (“to splatter”); it means that large drops of water splashed or splattered on the surface of the street one at a time, but continuously. --Hekaheka 14:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

riisellä I'm trying to type this word the closest I can from what I heard in the radio. The woman talking was explaining the influence and power of music in spreading one's point of view, and she started to sing, as an example, something like "riisellä, riisellä, suomen riisellä" Wisapi 20:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

rallattaa = hokea. Olonsa may be singular or plural, but here it is singular as an eraser or piece of paper only has one existence. --Hekaheka 08:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, so using olo in the plural does give it a plural meaning? I had understood from the articles olo and olot that in the singular it means feeling, and in the plural, circumstances. Wisapi 13:01, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of an English equivalent for sekös". It is pronoun se + interrogative clitic -kö + fortifying clitic -s. Here it indicates that the other guy would find the thing told very funny and the first person would not like it. The whole sentence would translate something like this: "You see them yourself, you idiot, what are you staring at, if I said that (they are) red that would make you laugh like hell, right." --Hekaheka 21:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

But in this phrase siuhatta seems to be a transitive verb (object: "kiukaan kiviä"). To hiss, on the other hand, is only transitive when meaning the sound one makes with the mouth to disaprove someone ("The crowd hissed the performers off the stage"). So how could this phrase be translated? Wisapi 01:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

He made the hot stones of the sauna stove hiss by throwing water on them. Those readers that are familiar with sauna (all Finns, that is) understand the expression even when the water is not specifically mentioned.

Hm, I noticed that you actually didn't translate "kokeeksi". Indeed it seems that this word isn't quite often translated cf. tulppakonstia (keksiä kokeilla). So, how does this word actually works? Does it have different meanings in different cases? Is it used in many collocations with different verb? Wisapi 14:14, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

That was unintentional, I concentrated too much on hissing. Kokeeksi (“as a test”) is used here adverbially to indicate that he tested whether the stove was hot enough. The whole sentence would be like:

Uljas hissed the stones (made the stones hiss by splashing a little water on them) of the stove experimentally. --Hekaheka 17:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem ;) Thank you very much for your help! Wisapi 20:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I could've just posted it above with the other entry. But what would be the root of this word? "Sukka" doesn't explain the "-si-", right? Would it be sukkanen? Wisapi 17:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like another onomatopoetic creation of the writer, at least I have never heard this word. It looks like a combination of sykähtää (“to throb, or when said of heart, to jump”) and hypähtää (“to do a little jump”), and might be translated as "flash": "A sudden hope flashed in Anita's heart, a sudden timidity." --Hekaheka 21:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

särinä-ärrää "Kenenkään mieleen ei olisi tullut Jannen kotikylässä kummeksua Kääryn Ripan särinä-ärrää." The verb säristellä appeared further on in the book. Is it derived therefrom? Apropos, is there a difference between kummeksua and kummeksia? Wisapi 23:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

sen I observed that this word comes before an adverb in the comparative: "Sen paremmin sitä ei olisi voinut kukaan sanoa, luontevammin, Kauko ajatteli ja katsoi vielä etenevää lintua." What does it mean? Is it a construction similar to "partitive + comparative of an adjective", like in "Hän on ystäväänsä alykkäämpi" (="Hän on alykkäämpi kuin ystävänsä")? Apropos, from which verb does "luontevammin" come? Wisapi 16:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

It is a question of word order, which is relatively free in Finnish. Sen paremmin means "better than that" and by putting it first in the sentence the writer wants to stress the goodness of the answer. "Nobody could have said it better than that, more naturally (casually), Kauko thought and took another look on the proceeding bird."

Hm, so all of the following sentences should be correct:

adverb in the comparative + kuin + nominative (of the word representing the circumstance to which one compares; possibly se) = genitive (of the word representing the circumstance to which one compares; possibly sen) + adverb in the comparative

"Sen paremmin sitä ei olisi voinut kukaan sanoa" > Nobody could have said it any better.

Only the first sentence is correct, because sen and paremmin belong together. I corrected the others. I need to correct myself as well. When I think of it, "any better" is a better translation for sen paremmin than "better than that". --Hekaheka 00:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

So how does one say "that went off better than last time"? Is any of the following suggestions correct, or are there any further possiblities playing around with word order?

Kulki is "went" as in "traversed", so it sounds like you're talking about a test launch or something. Otherwise you'll need meni. The 1st is the correct word order, the 2nd would mean "it went better last time". Tho you'll need the adessiv case in both: kerralla. A 2nd option for your intended meaning, using your 2nd word order is the partitiv case: viime kertaa paremmin. --Tropylium 14:04, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

adjective in the comparative + kuin + nominative (of the thing to which one compares; possibly se) = partitive (of the thing to which one compares; possibly sitä) + adjective in the comparative

Another onomatopoetic verb: she (most likely a female) had a weak, almost whispering sound. --Hekaheka 14:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

— Tarkoitaksä ...

Isomman, tumman, parta hipoi pienen päälakea." By the way, what is tarkoitaksä and how does the last sentence parse? I can't find any syntax relation in it. Wisapi 11:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

tarkoitaksä is a contraction of tarkoitatko sinä = do you mean. --Hekaheka 14:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And why is isomman, tumman in the genitive? What does it agree with? How does this sentence parse? Something like: "the beard of the bigger and browner touched the crown of the littler"? But why the comma after "tumman"? Wisapi 17:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The subject has been omitted:

The beard of the larger dark-haired (man) was touching the top of the head of the smaller (man). --Hekaheka 21:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

ei sanan sanaa = "not a word". Doubling a noun this way togetherwith a negation is used to underline the lack of something. The first noun that is in genitive could be replaced with e.g. yhtäkään, ainoatakaan, ei edes yhtä:

The term sähkörauta is most likely a synonym to silitysrauta (“iron - the tool for ironing”). Sähkörauta is an iron heated with electricity as opposed to the antique ones which were heated with glowing coals. In this sense there's no difference between kerralla and kertaa. --Hekaheka 17:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Almost, but more exactly seurata (“to follow”). Verbatim translation of seurata asioita would be "to follow things". This does probably not make sense in English but "to keep up with what's going on" would be much better although I'm not sure if it's a perfect translation here. --Hekaheka 17:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess it would be understandable in English. In Portuguese too we use "acompanhar o racicínio" which means "follow the reasoning" and in German there is "den Gedankengang folgen", which means the same. But I don't whether these are really idioms or just sentences which stuck in my mind. Google has 1 040 000 hits for "follow the reasoning" and 233 for German expression, whereby it is substantially more difficult to find the exact expression, as there are lots of words which could show up in the middle of the expression, the verb could be otherwise conjugated and the word order be other. What I had never seen was a "follow" verb being accompanied by such a broad expression as "things". Wisapi 01:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

sukkelaan should this adjective in the illative function as an adverb here? "— Helvi... sukkelaan..." Wisapi 23:19, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

It is from sukkela and is indeed used adverbially here: "Helvi...quick..." --Hekaheka 17:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it a special adjective or can all (mode) adjectives be used adverbially when in the illative (perhaps nopeaan)? Does it make any difference using sukkelaan or sukkelasti? Wisapi 01:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

What are you reading? I have never heard that, but the dictionary says that it means to stare, especially with eyes half-closed (not in a lazy way but "wrinkled" like one does in a strong light). Synonyms include tiirata, tiiristää, tirrittää, tirrottaa, tihdata. --Hekaheka 23:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

tirskua (“to giggle”) > tirskuminen (“giggling”) > genitive or genitive-accusative. Also birds may "tirskua", but then the English term would be to chirp. --Hekaheka 11:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

tulla "—Sitä on tultu..." I think sitä here is refering to a boy, but why was it said thus instead of "—Se on tullut"? Wisapi 19:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The first is a non-standard-language way of constructing a passive sentence, a bit like using "there" in English. The second is an active sentence, with se as subject. --194.100.213.249 16:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

ah, it does make sense in the story: <äiti> who is babysitting Puukenkänainen's child is willing to do the trick of cramming the kid's mouth with a "plug of" food so that he doesn't squeal around — a trick that she actually saw Puukenkänainen do. Apropos, does kokeilla here mean "based on her experience", or should it be understood in the collocation "keksiä kokeilla" meaning "to devise and put into practice"? Wisapi 23:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it simply means to "try". --Hekaheka 22:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

tupauuno A compound of terms tupa (“cottage”) + uuno (“fool”); a jocular expression meaning a slightly foolish man, most likely an eternal bachelor, who spends most of his time in his house, doing nothing productive. If tupauuno is married, she is probably a pirttihirmu ("living room monster"). --Hekaheka 18:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

turvemättään "silmät katsoivat kuin turvemättään alta." I assume that alta, here, is a postposition, but turvemättään, whatever it is, doesn't seem to be in the genitive, but rather the 3rd infinitive adessive of some verb plus a possessive pronoun. Wisapi 00:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It is the genitive of turve (“peat”) + mätäs (“hummock”). --Hekaheka 12:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a sound caused by releasing pressurized gas quickly but not explosively, like e.g. after punching a hole in a tyre or in connection with an unsuccessful attempt to explode something. --Hekaheka 08:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

tykätä Does this verb have another meaning when followed by a partitive object, like in "—Mitä tykkäsit?" Wisapi 23:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does, it also means "to think of". Added the sense and etymology to the entry. --Hekaheka 17:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

täytyiskö seems to be a form of täytyä, but there are some complications: the first one would be the missing "i" "täytyisikö", which could be an elision, and the second one its use in the sentence "Mä vaan tuumin, että täytyiskö mun luopua Ismon hoitamisesta." where the conjuction että would be made redundant by clitic -kö. Wisapi 19:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It is a bit like törmätä, but not destroying anything. I would use it e.g. of somebody suddenly entering a room, unexpected by both sides, and somehow in an improper condition given the nature of the occasion - entering a wrong place in a wrong time. According to Nykysuomen sanakirja it may also mean rynnätä (“to rush”) and tönäistä (“to push, to give a jerk”). --Hekaheka 23:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

tulla this verb can be used in either of these constructions "elative + 3rd-pers. sg. + noun/adjective in nominative or partitive or tulla by person + translative" to mean become, right? Well in the following phrase, however, it seems it's used with an "elative subject" AND a "translative adjective":

Furthermore this use of sen seem to stand for something being compared to, even though we have an adjective here, which would demand the partitive case for "se", instead of genitive ("sen"), in accordance to my hypothesis of how "kuin + nominative" can be replaced (stated under entry "sen" in this page). Wisapi 22:19, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

This like sen paremmaksi discussed above:

She wanted Voitto to kill the snake.

- But when it does not exist any more...

- No, but think if...

- it doesn't turn any better, no matter how much you think of it, when you don't see ... one can start to kill the thought ... come ... --Hekaheka 08:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess you meant "sen paremmin", is there a difference between them? I had always thought that adverbs were derived from -sti, which grades to -mmin (equal to the comparative form of an adjective in the instrumentative plural) and -immin, and that -mmaksi were only the ending of a comparative adjective in translative singular.

Yes, you are right, paremmaksi is an adjective, but I was trying to explain the role of sen when writing the text. It is the same in both contexts. --Hekaheka 15:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Analysing "autuaammaksi" as an adverb indeed makes more sense, because in the same way (I presume) one can't say "Minusta tule lääkäriksi", one couldn't say "Minusta (/Siitä) tule autuaa(-mma-)ksi". Either one says "Minusta tule autuas" or "Minä tulen autuaaksi" if one wants to say "I become blessed", is that correct?

However, one little issue still persists: there's actually no subject in this sentence; it is very weird and amazing to me the logic in this sentence: "what came from it was a condition (described by an adverb)". Wisapi 23:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Correct wordings for your examples, and some related sentences:

Minusta tulee lääkäri. Haluan tulla lääkäriksi. In the first sentence the transformation is expressed by elative of minä and in the second by translative of lääkäri. The point is that one should express the transformation only in one way. The acceptable way depends on the choice of verb.

What kind of noun can't it be used with? Lääkäri is noun in "Minä tulen lääkäriksi". Wisapi 19:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Part of the difficulty is that the text records spoken language as it is spoken and not as it would be grammatically correct. In this case the speaker simply omits the subject, as the meaning is clear for a fellow Finn even without it. Autuas is also a bit weird choice for an adjective here, and I think the meaning is better conveyed into other languages if we replace it with hyvä. A translation-friendly wording would be e.g. like this: Asia ei muutu yhtään paremmaksi, vaikka sitä kuinka ajattelisi. instead of siitä sen autuaammaksi tule vaikka mitä ajattelisi. --Hekaheka 15:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

So, all in all, we have four weird phenomena occuring here:

1. Suppression of ei when the verb is in its connegative form and a vaikka-clause follows;

I made a distinction here between a morphological analysis and a semantical. In the former, "siitä" is not a subject because it doesn't conjugate the verb, whereas in the latter it is because, when translating it to another language, that would be the subject, cf. "Minusta tulee..." = "I [subject] become".

The predicative nucleos would be a noun that comes after the phrase "I become...". It is not an object, because become is a copula verb and it is not followed by a objective pronoun (one does not say "I became him", but "I became he").

In Finnish the "nominative subject" and predicative are the same thing in the structure "Minusta tulee lääkäri", because 'lääkäri' is at the same time the grammatical subject and semantical predicative ("I'll become a doctor [predicative])

3. Adjective "autuaammaksi" in the translative as an atribute to the omited "nominative subject" ("autaammaksi (asia))"). "Autuas" is here in the comparative translative, instead of nominative (agreeing with the omited "nominative subject"), because it expresses that the "nominative subject" has a tendence to become more "autuas".

Although this interpretation may seem artificial, it was the way I found to account for the impossibility of saying "Minusta tulee lääkäriksi".

tällaistako "Anita oli ajatellut, että tällaistako se on." I guess here it means idiomatically "that was that [the end]", but I'm once again intrigued by this use of the cunjunction että plus the clitic -ko. Wisapi 20:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This structure expresses an indirect question: "Anita had wondered whether this was like it (normally, always) is." --Hekaheka 08:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

But isn't it reduntant to use että when -ko alone makes for the indirect question. Wouldn't that even be an error, or perhaps best avoided in writing? I mean, doesn't just "Anita oli ajatellut, tälläistako se on." sound better? Wisapi 23:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. After all I'm an engineer and not a linguist. Using että does not sound completely out-of-bounds to me here, because besides being an indirect question, tällaistako se on is also a quote, at least almost. --Hekaheka 00:16, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

To my further[I hadn't seen your reply yet, which was indeed clarifying] bewilderment, I just found a sentence where jos is used to introduce an indirect question instead of ol' standard -ko: "Puhuessaan hän katseli jos olisi joku kepakko." At the same time that I may be inclined to think that that's "written language", because it is not part of a dialogue, the informal use of joku instead of jokin for inanimate things bereaves of my sureness. Wisapi 21:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Hm... But what about silmät and kelkassa? Do they refer to Sakari's eyes? "..and, like like Sakari's eyes on the sledge(?), pressed the cone of icecream against his mouth." Wisapi 12:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

That's how I understand it: the boys were watching a sled or sledge. It is possible, though, that kelkassa has a specific meaning in a dialect. There are several idioms that involve kelkka. E.g. lähteä jonkun kelkkaan means to follow someone unconditionally. c --Hekaheka 20:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the English equivalent. The onomatopoetic verbs are usually challenging from the translation point of view. Tuhista describes a sound that is somewhere between hissing and puffing. If you fill your lungs with air and blow it forcefully out through your nose you'll produce that sound. --Hekaheka 20:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

From tuhma > one who is naughty. This is a rare word, tuhmeliini would be more mainstream. Both are rather affectionate words. For example a girl might use the word of a boy who steals a kiss from her to indicate that she actually liked it, but being a good girl, she cannot admit it. --Hekaheka 22:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

töpö means short or shortened. It is seldom used alone, but appears in certain compound terms either as modifier or head: hännäntöpö, töpöhäntä. Töpökenkä gets no Google hits, and it appears to be writer's own creation. It is readily understandable (for natives, that is) in the context, because children's feet are more square than those of adults which makes the shoes appear shortened. --Hekaheka 06:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

That what is left of a tähkä (“ear of a grain plant”) when the grains have been removed. --Hekaheka 17:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

tänne This should be referring to 'talo', here; but then the sentence doesn't make sense. "Ja on parasta antaa asunto pois, ei kannata pitää kun Ilkka aina matkustaa ja Pirjo mahtuu tänne kyllä." Could it mean that Pirjo would be able to accompany Ilkka (would 'fit' in his travels)? Wisapi 20:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

It is connected with mahtua (“to fit in”), which requires an illative:

Pirjo mahtuu tänne.

"Pirjo fits in here" or perhaps better "There's room for Pirjo here".

Oh! now I got it. Thank you for your help. I had understood roughly what you just said, but I thought it would be illogical that they would sell (give away) their apartament if Pirjo still fit there. Now I got that they aren't at Pirjo's, so tänne refers to where they are now, whither Pirjo will move. If Pirjo's apartament were meant, than sinne would be used. Wisapi 01:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

It is comitative of unenturpea = unen (“of sleep”) + turpea (“swollen”). This term is probably invented by the author, at least it gets zero Google hits. But it is immediately understood by Finnish-speakers, and thus this type of new formations may be created by experienced writers. --Hekaheka 16:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Umpeen does not modify ponnistella but sataneita, which here replaces the verb sataa lunta (“to snow”): umpeen sataneita jälkiä myöten = "along the tracks that had been filled with snow". A verbatim translation is impossible in this case.